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Gem Download Study: 24 Weeks

Well 12 more weeks has passed and it is time for the next installment of the Ruby Gems Download study. The goal of this study was to see if it was possible to observe patterns in the download rates that might lead to useful conclusions about the mix of entities doing the downloading. The gems repository makes this download data readily available. For my gems, you can see that data here.

For the 24 week report there are two main data findings. A graph of individual, cumulative downloads for each gem for 24 weeks and a graph of the weekly downloads for all gems for the same period.

I have collected 24 weeks of data, so here is the graph showing the rate of downloads.

If you look, you will see that the slopes of the lines vary. Some lines are very flat, while others are sloped upward at a much sharper angle. This means that the rate of downloads is also different.

The weekly, combined results show that the rate of downloads is anything but constant. The valleys seem to correspond to periods this summer when large numbers of people would be on vacation (Not me of course; I’m never/always on vacation)

The spiky peaks do tend to correspond to times when large numbers of gems were mass updated. This is especially the case for the last and fourth from last points where a code of conduct and changes to the mini_readline gem were propagated to most of the gems. This is clearly indicative of automated downloading.

This study shall continue. I estimate that the next posting on this matter will be one to study an entire year’s worth of data.